C2E2 2013

Recap: Comics, costumes and cosmic bliss

April 28, 2013|By Christopher Borrelli | Tribune reporter

Ray Hocevar, dressed as a nome, gets a hug from a fellow convention goer during the second day of the annual C2E2 Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo Saturday, April 27, 2013 at McCormick Place in Chicago. (Anthony Souffle )

The Boy Wonder folded his hands before him on the table and waited for the next question. It was one of those archetypal comic book convention moments, the kind you can picture even if you've never come within 100 miles of a comic book convention. Burt Ward, now in his late 60s and beach-ball round, sat beside Julie Newmar, now in her late 70s and flightily casting her hands about as if impersonating Kristen Wiig's impersonations of an aging diva. TV's Robin and Catwoman from the camp 1960s “Batman” sat side by side, fielding questions (Batman — Adam West, now in his 80s — canceled abruptly, citing a back injury).

Before them sat more than 1,000 conventiongoers — as stereotypical a scene as you would imagine.

Except, as happened frequently during C2E2 — aka, the massive Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo at McCormick Place that wrapped up its fourth year Sunday — there was a hint of change.

The young man who stepped to the microphone to ask them a question did not appear nervous. Ward appeared nervous. Ward pointed to the man, who said, “First, I just want to say: Burt, you were my first crush.”

At the main entrance to C2E2, Thomas Ficke, a retired Chicago police officer who served for 37 years and was now doing security detail, stood for hours and performed weapons checks. Hordes streamed past him and adjacent security guards, waving their convention badges for admittance and holding open their backpacks and shopping bags in silent acceptance. Ficke's job, though, was to inspect the faux-weaponry that a good percentage of the heavily costumed crowd dragged into the convention hall.

Two men dressed in paramilitary garb stopped before Ficke, their black flak vests strung with grenades and smoke bombs, their belts packed with machine guns, shotguns and pistols. Ficke asked them to remove each piece and they laid each gun on the table. Then Ficke weighed each piece in his hands, asking the chubby soldiers to dismantle what could be dismantled, what wasn't molded plastic and hollow throughout. Next, he looked at the grenades — clearly Styrofoam painted green — and, satisfied, tied a blue “Inspected” tag around each gun. He told them to have a good time, tugged on his sportcoat and turned back to the crowd, staring at the hands and belts of every Spider-Man and Mario Brother that passed through the entrance.

“These are very nice people, this has been a pleasure,” Ficke said, “and I'd never been to one of these things, so I had no idea what to expect, but, you know, because of what happened in Boston, I gotta do this …”

A guy walked by dressed as Nick Fury, carrying no weapons, holding open a large, silver Avengers suitcase.

Ficke smiled, nodded.

Another man dropped a large, mud-splattered machine gun on the table, a bloodied chainsaw strapped to the bottom of the barrel. “Just foam,” he told Ficke, who apologized for the inspection and lifted up the gun.

“No, no, I'm glad you're doing this,” said the man, who then shouldered his killing machine and walked away.

At the top of the C2E2 ecosystem — at the head of nearly every sizable comic-book convention — there is the presently popular famous guest, the unofficial king or queen of the con. This year, that person was Felicia Day, the 33-year-old actress, Web impresario and geek icon, who sat at the back of McCormick's West Building and signed autographs and took pictures with fans, on and off, for eight hours, for three days.

She had red hair and wore a bracelet inscribed “Fear Not.” Fans stepped up to her visibly shaking, crying, shy; others treated her as if they were old friends. And she spoke to each with seemingly sincere interest. Standing beside her for an hour, you heard the same phrases over and over: They love her on “Supernatural,” loved her on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” love her nerd-benchmak/Web series “The Guild,” love everything she does, love her, feel close to her. “This might seem creepy,” a man in a circus ringmaster jacket said, leaning across the autograph table and whispering he wanted to get a tattoo of her signature.